John's Canyon Road

We are morning people. So after some vacation time, we slowly came to life. It was cold. I noticed the heater had come on a couple times during the night. I didn't care. I was more interested in rolling over and getting back to sleep. I gotta tell you that those novafoam mattresses from costco are worth their weight in gold.

Once I had dragged my worthless self out of bed, I was excited to check out the scenery during daylight hours. I geared up and headed over to the end of our peninsula. It was awesome. Gazing down at the river that had carved itself down some 1000 feet from where I stood. I had to stand there for several minutes to soak up the sight. Seriously, when you think of the series of events that were necessary to create such a spectacle, well, it's just mind boggling.

I wondered how close this dog would get to the edge. . .

Goosenecks State Park

It had quite a few goosenecks!

In the meantime, back at the ranch, Ye had been stewing over that mangled microwave oven. He decided to disassemble it and see if he could fix it. He had to use a vice-grip because a couple of the screws attaching the cover were weird. Once disassembled, he noticed that he could reattach the wires and everything might actually work. So, we took it outside, put it on a table, and fired up the generator. I stood ready with a fire extinguisher... and voila! The lights on the microwave came on. We set the clock, and then tried to heat some water in it, and it worked – the water got hot! Ye quipped, “The taste of victory is ever so sweet.”

This will one day be Ye's tombstone

We then fueled up the bikes and headed to our first ride, a dirt road that Ye had scoped with Google Earth. It was a delightful little road that headed back into John's Canyon. I know this because the name of the road was John's Canyon Road. Perceptive, aren't I? ;-)

This particular road started out pretty flat, wide and angled off to the northwest. That's how a lot of them start and I’ve come to learn that you cannot judge a road by its entrance. This one was not going to be any different.

Once we cleared the canyon floor, the road rose dramatically through a series of tight, rocky, hairpin turns. When we crested one of the climbs, a pickup truck had backed up and pulled into a pullout to allow us to pass. There were a couple of local ranchers who were preparing the canyon for their cattle that would be arriving from the mountains. Ye reached them first and was already chatting them up when I rode in. They were talking about the canyon, what it was like, where it went, why they were there, and before departing, mentioned the existence of some petroglyphs on the rock faces.

“They are on the big overhang rock next to the road, there are deer prints, and then ¾ mile later there are some bigger ones.” That was the sum total of the directions we were given. The rest was up to us. I, of course, wanting to eek out every little moment of adventure I could from this trip, immediately slowed to a crawl and started looking for the big rock close to the road. I have to tell you, there were a million big rocks close to the road. And. . .i didn't know if they were close to the road, or high on the red rock cliff faces.

The first big rock I came to, I dismounted and walked several different directions searching for those deer print. A big nothing, nada, zero. So I finally resigned myself to not seeing them, got back on the bike and continued on.

Down the canyon road a few rocky miles later, there were HUGE rocks that hung over the road. With renewed interest, I started looking again without getting off the bike. I didn't see the deer print, but up off to my right etched in the black face of the rock were a number of beautiful petroglyphs just waiting for me to shoot with my camera!! I captured, the remnants of ancient graffiti artists.  

I'm sure there is a story told in there.

Aren't they cool!

They certainly lacked the detail of our present day artists, but I suppose wielding a spray can versus a rock is a bit different. The paint would not have lasted these many years either I can imagine.

Ye was long gone by this point. So I snapped my pictures, tried to remember the terrain so I could show him on the way back.

We rode the rocky terrain until it evened out and burst into the most beautiful valley.  

It was lush and green with indigenous trees and an awesome little gentle creek that ran through it.  

There were a couple of river crossings that had big boulders in it that we had to traverse. One of the crossings had BIG rocks that we had to navigate. That took a bit of the “getting over big rocks without having the handlebars torn from your hands” skill. I did ok. Never had them torn, at least at this point.  

I loved that you could see how high this little creek could run in the right Mother Nature circumstances.

We followed the trail until it ended, then turned around and returned.

I was able to point out the petroglyphs to him. We stopped and snapped a few more pictures after climbing some of the rocks to get closer. I started looking for those stupid deer tracks on the way back. At what we surmised to be ¾ of a mile, we started looking at the “big rocks” again. Both of us got off our bikes and searched. Nothing.

Decided those deer tracks were just not meant to be seen by us at that time. So we climbed back on the bikes and headed out. About 100 ft. later, and several seconds behind Ye, I found them. So I stopped to savor and record the moment. . .before I was off again.

We rode back to the RV, ate some lunch and then packed up to head to the next designated spot on our itinerary. . .Valley of the Gods.

Outside of Mexican Hat on the way to Valley of the Gods, I remember one particularly nerve racking moment being a 10% grade. Now that doesn’t sound like much when you are on the back of a 250 dirt bike, but it takes on a life of its own when you are strapped to an 11 ton metal and fiberglass behemoth hurling itself down the road.

Heh, *that* was kinda dramatic!! I think I need medication, lots of it.